About Us

MCE Social Capital is a nonprofit impact investing firm that uses a pioneering loan guarantee model to generate economic opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people, particularly women, in more than 30 countries.

The Financial Inclusion Gap

More than two billion people in the world lack access to formal financial services—including savings accounts, insurance, and loans—and consequently must contend with financial insecurity on a daily basis. Small businesses also suffer from a lack of appropriate finance opportunities, despite their unique potential for transformative job creation and social impact. We help fill these financial inclusion gaps by funding:

Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) that help people living in rural areas gain access to credit, savings accounts, insurance, healthcare and health education, business education, and technical assistance.

Small and Growing Businesses (SGBs) that create jobs, help smallholder farmers, facilitate clean water and energy, and increase household savings.

Commitment to women: Across its investments, MCE focuses on organizations that are women-led, include a majority of women in a supply chain, specifically develop products or services for women, employ a majority of women, and/or have a majority of direct clients who are women.

MCE was founded in 2006 on the belief that loan guarantees—an ancient finance mechanism—could uniquely unlock private sector capital for businesses and entrepreneurs in developing countries. After ten years of operating, MCE has refined its pioneering loan guarantee model (see right) to successfully unlock millions of dollars of capital.

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MCE’s loan guarantee model: MCE finances its MFI and SGB lending by collecting philanthropic pledges from foundations and individuals (its guarantors) to make tax-deductible contributions if – and only if – an MFI or SGB fails to repay a loan from MCE. MCE pools these pledges – now $113M from more than 90 guarantors – and uses them as collateral to borrow capital from U.S. financial institutions.

MCE’s Innovations

MCE is a nimble, virtual organization with leadership in San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, and North Carolina.

MCE recruits trail-blazing individuals, foundations, and other entities to back loans to MCE from institutional lenders and accredited investors. Learn more about the Guarantor model.

Since 2006, when MCE began operations, MCE has used more than $110 million from private sector lenders, made possible by MCE’s loan guarantees, to make loans to hundreds of MFIs. The MFIs have in turn funded more than $160 million in loans and other services to hundreds of thousands of people in more than 30 countries in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Each of these individuals—more than 71% of whom are women—supports an average of five family members, or more than 2 million people.

MCE’s separate Small and Growing Business (SGB) Fund, supported by MCE’s retained earnings and donations since 2013, but switching over to guaranteed capital in 2017, makes flexible, customized, and affordable loans to SGBs in Sub-Saharan Africa and other challenging parts of the world.

MCE sells its Global Economic Opportunity Notes (the Notes) to accredited investors. These Notes pay a fixed financial return, generate positive social impact, and benefit from MCE’s 10-year track record of solid portfolio performance and the fact that MCE’s investments are backed by over $113 million in loan guarantees.